Moz Q&A is closed.
After more than 13 years, and tens of thousands of questions, Moz Q&A closed on 12th December 2024. Whilst we’re not completely removing the content - many posts will still be possible to view - we have locked both new posts and new replies. More details here.
404 errors on non-existent URLs
-
Hey guys and gals,
First Moz Q&A for me and really looking forward to being part of the community. I hope as my first question this isn't a stupid one but I was just struggling to find any resource that dealt with the issue and am just looking for some general advice.
Basically a client has raised a problem with 404 error pages - or the lack thereof- on non-existent URLs on their site; let's say for example: 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas'
Obviously content never existed on this page so its not like you're saying 'hey, sorry this isn't here anymore'; its more like- 'there was never anything here in the first place'. Currently in this fictitious example typing in 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels/asdfas**'** returns the same content as the 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towels' page which I appreciate isn't ideal.
What I was wondering is how far do you take this issue- I've seen examples here on the seomoz site where you can edit the URI in a similar manner and it returns the same content as the parent page but with the alternate address. Should 404's be added across all folders on a site in a similar way? How often would this scenario be and issue particularly for internal pages two or three clicks down? I suppose unless someone linked to a page with a misspelled URL...
Also would it be worth placing 301 redirects on a small number of common mis-spellings or typos e.g. 'greatbeachtowels.com/beach-towles' to the correct URLs as opposed to just 404s?
Many thanks in advance.
-
Hi Matthew,
Thanks for the prompt response. Yeah, that's pretty much what I was thinking too- I know its a pretty basic aspect but I just sort of wanted someone to corroborate the process- sorry if it sounded like I was suggesting that just because content never existed there it's a reason not to 404- that wasn't my intention.
Thanks again
-
Hi,
My understanding of best practices (and what I've always done on sites I've worked on) is that you do want to return a 404 status code on any non-existent URL regardless of whether or not content existed there in the first place. This is your signal to Google/Bing/the world that this is a bad URL. It doesn't matter the reason that URL is broken really, you just want to make sure Google and Bing know that there is no /beach-towels/asdfas page on your site on the off chance they find it or see a link to it.
If you return the exact same content on /beach-towels/asdfas as you do on /beach-towels/ this does open you up to duplicate content issues because now you have two URLs with the same content. Even though there is a slim chance anybody could discover that an incorrect URL returns duplicate content, you don't want to open yourself to those problems if you can avoid it.
I do think your idea of common misspelling is a really good one and one not enough people take advantage of. I've implemented 301 redirects for common misspellings on other sites. I've found it is especially helpful on short URLs people are likely to type in by hand (for example, people will type in greatbeachtowels.com/beach so it would be worth making sure greatbeachtowels.com/baech or /beech have a 301 redirect over to that other page.
Hope some of my answer can help you out. Good luck!
Thanks,
Matthew
Got a burning SEO question?
Subscribe to Moz Pro to gain full access to Q&A, answer questions, and ask your own.
Browse Questions
Explore more categories
-
Moz Tools
Chat with the community about the Moz tools.
-
SEO Tactics
Discuss the SEO process with fellow marketers
-
Community
Discuss industry events, jobs, and news!
-
Digital Marketing
Chat about tactics outside of SEO
-
Research & Trends
Dive into research and trends in the search industry.
-
Support
Connect on product support and feature requests.
Related Questions
-
GMB Bulk Upload Error
Hello! I am continuing to have issues with the bulk upload option.Currently, there are 12 non-verified locations in a location group in my GMB account. I have approximately 6-8 more that need to be added to this group via bulk upload. When uploading the spreadsheet, I receive an error reading "You've exceeded the limit for the about of locations you can upload to Google My Business in a single day. Try again later." It seems to happen specifically to the locations that aren't in my GMB account already. The others, the ones already in the account, are fine and simply read "No updates" when the bulk upload sheet is read. Everything else is marked as an error. Why is it marking some listings as nonviable when they come in via the bulk verification spreadsheet, which has been downloaded directly from the links Google has provided, and filled in with the help of the sample and amenities list?How do we finish uploading all of the remaining locations?I have another group, separate group (same company, groups split into US and International) under my name that may also need a bulk upload - what can I do to avoid this error in the future? Can they still be bulk uploaded to my account after I upload the first location group's listings?If you could provide any guidance, I'd be very grateful.Thanks in advance!
Technical SEO | | kmarsh0 -
Non Published Wordpress Pages
Hi, Is there any negative SEO consequences from having too many pages private or not published. Can it like slow the site down or does it not matter? Someone in my dept. has so many pages started/not complete and besides being messy, I wonder if it has any negative impact on the site. Thanks
Technical SEO | | aua1 -
301 Redirect non existant pages
Hi I have 100's of URL's appearing in Search Console for example: ?p=1_1 These go to on to 5_200 etc.. I have tried to do htaccess and the mod rewrite is on as I can redirect directories to the root i.e RewriteRule ^web_example(.*)$ /$1 [R=301,N,L] However I have tried all kinds of variations to redirect ?p= and either it doesn't work at all or it crashes the website. Can anyone point me in the right direction to fix this.
Technical SEO | | Cocoonfxmedia0 -
:443 - 404 error
I get strange :443 errors in my 404 monitor on Wordpress https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/hoed-al-capone-panter-8713647758068-2/
Technical SEO | | Happy-SEO
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/cart/www.compleetverkleed.nl/feestkleding
https://www.compleetverkleed.nl:443/maskers/ I have no idea where these come from :S2 -
429 Errors?
I have over 500,000 429 errors in webmaster tools. Do I need to be concerned about these errors?
Technical SEO | | TheKrazyCouponLady0 -
Duplicate Content and URL Capitalization
I have multiple URLs that SEOMoz is reporting as duplicate content. The reason is that there are characters in the URL that may, or may not, be capitalized depending on user input. A couple examples are: www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-sale www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/Houses-for-rent www.househitz.com/Pennsylvania/houses-for-rent There are currently thousands of instances of this on the site. Is this something I should spend effort to try and resolve (may not be minor effort), or should I just ignore it and move on?
Technical SEO | | Jom0 -
Redirect non-www if using canonical url?
I have setup my website to use canonical urls on each page to point to the page i wish Google to refer to. At the moment, my non-www domain name is not redirected to www domain. Is this required if i have setup the canonical urls? This is the tag i have on my index.php page rel="canonical" href="http://www.mydomain.com.au" /> If i browse to http://mydomain.com.au should the link juice pass to http://www.armourbackups.com.au? Will this solve duplicate content problems? Thanks
Technical SEO | | blakadz0 -
Trailing Slashes In Url use Canonical Url or 301 Redirect?
I was thinking of using 301 redirects for trailing slahes to no trailing slashes for my urls. EG: www.url.com/page1/ 301 redirect to www.url.com/page1 Already got a redirect for non-www to www already. Just wondering in my case would it be best to continue using htacces for the trailing slash redirect or just go with Canonical URLs?
Technical SEO | | upick-1623910